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God's Emerging City
God is bringing His people to true spiritual prosperity and success. What we are looking for on this journey is both an increase of His holy presence and character developed in our lives along with the decrease of our fleshly desires, agendas, and reactions. In other words, God wants to reveal himself in our lives both individually and in our midst when we gather.
In our lifetimes, we may never achieve great material abundance or be seen as successful by the world. We may never be thought of as mighty in intellect or political strength. Yet if that is acceptable to God for us, then we must embrace His will as sufficient for us as well. On the other hand, it is quite different with spiritual progress. We must not be complacent and satisfied with our present spiritual state. We must press on to know Him more.
One problem we face in our culture is that the American way has come to mean the freedom to do our own thing, to do whatever we want. After all, this is the land of the free. But Isaiah’s prophetic words give a different perspective. To go our own way is to be as sheep gone astray. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way (Isaiah 53:6). Maybe doing our own thing is not so wise after all. To make the point even clearer, the prophet in the same verse defines such a lifestyle as iniquity. And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).
Even in the Church, believers make plans, change jobs, buy houses, take vacations, and make many decisions simply because it seems like a good thing to do. However, God wants us to seek Him and then listen for His wisdom and timing in the decisions we make. We are citizens in His Kingdom, and it is not a democracy; it is a theocracy. Christ is King.
May God help us to become one with Him in His timing, may He teach us His ways. The result for us will be spiritual fulfillment and inner peace. On the other hand, doing what we want, when we want could be defined as lawlessness. And Jesus was quite clear concerning what He thought about that.
Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.
The practice of doing whatever we want also has serious implications whenever we experience personal injustice. While our society says that we should retaliate when others offend us, yet at His unjust trial Jesus did not open His mouth or answer in any way. Instead, He yielded to oppression and judgment.
To overcome at the cross, Jesus embraced the One who had sent Him, who was sovereign even in the midst of the evil. And as a result, He revealed His Father perfectly. For us, God has purposed to develop in us His holy attributes that from Heaven He might reveal His government among men.
If we let injustice against us dictate how we respond, then Christ’s rule in us is obscured. But if we yield to His authority in our response, then He reigns in and through us and is revealed in our circumstances. He then triumphs and we triumph with Him as we peacefully and boldly express His heart and His word to those around us.
But what if we are spiritually immature? What if Christ has only begun to develop His nature and character in us? It can be so easy to just explode with anger or frustration, severely damaging our relationships. At such times we must listen to the wisdom of God. Even though everything in us cries out for revenge, God’s wisdom and grace can empower us to restrain our fleshly tendencies. Then when we are alone with Him, we must cry out for Him to conform us to His likeness, to adjust our tendencies to react with anger.
To be clear, the process of being conformed to the image of Christ may take longer than we initially thought when we first came to know the Lord.
Isaiah goes on to say,
When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.
Christ’s Church is His offspring; we have been born of His Spirit. Isaiah prophesied that Christ would see His offspring, prolong His days, and cause the good pleasure of the Lord to prosper. As a result of His soul’s labor and anguish, He would see God’s eternal purpose accomplished and as a result, be satisfied.
One reason we know the Earth will one day be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea is because Jesus received a promise from His Father. That vow was that God’s good pleasure, His purpose, would prosper in the hand of His Son.
Today, because Christ went the route of the cross, God has given to Him all authority in Heaven and on Earth. He has the power and the moral right to govern the universe and to bring forth on Earth the fruit that Heaven has purposed.
In the end, as God views all of human history, satisfaction will fill His heart as He looks on His people. He will consider His own criteria for a holy bride and be overjoyed with her. She will be without spot or wrinkle because of Calvary and the continuing ministry of the Holy Spirit within her. Finally, when she has been fully prepared, He will step out of eternity and end the Church age.
On that day, the Holy Spirit will have succeeded in all for which He has been poured out. What an amazing thought. When I presently ponder the condition of the Church, I know that I am not satisfied. I see her divisions, her fleshly attitudes, and her complacency. And yet we know that on that day, the God who sees and knows everything will be pleased with what He sees.
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong…
Who are the strong ones who will participate in the spoils of Heaven’s great spiritual war against darkness? Very simply, they are the ones who overcome. Even in the midst of suffering, they triumph as they discover God’s presence and power to pick up the cross and follow Christ’s footsteps on His route to exaltation.
According to John’s Revelation, those who overcame Satan did so –
... by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
The blood of the Lamb was how they gained access to God’s kingdom as well as how they rejected the enemy’s continual accusations of their unworthiness. Christ’s blood is always the basis for spiritual victory. Secondly, the word of their testimony was the verbal proclamation of God’s work in their lives. Nothing exasperates Satan more than for a believer to continually recognize God’s work in his life and then to praise Him as a result. The final weapon in the war was that they loved not their lives even to the point of death. Again, the route to dominion involved death; they simply ceased to live for themselves any longer. Today, those who are successful in spiritual warfare are those who die to their agendas and lay hold of Christ’s.
When we understand the necessity of dying to self, then the choice becomes clear to not accept the enemy’s lies and his expected emotional responses from us due to our circumstances. Instead of reacting with anger, or lust, or fear, we yield to God’s heart and reveal Christ. Here is how we win wars. Spiritual warfare is primarily about abiding in the Lord and refusing to come out from that place of refuge no matter what the situation seems to demand.
Jesus will divide the spoils with those who overcome. Spoils can be defined as the plunder taken from an enemy through warfare. In other words, as our King brings human history to its climax in the final crushing of Satan, He will have looted the devil’s whole dark kingdom. And Christ’s victorious followers will have received of the spoils. These gains will undoubtedly be the great harvest of souls set free from the grip of darkness.
To overcome means that we reign with Christ, to actually sit with Him in heavenly places on His throne.
To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power (Greek, EXOUSIA – authority) over the nations -- He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’ -- as I also have received from My Father.
However one interprets the above verses, it is clear that the enemy will ultimately be put to flight and that God will have many victorious believers who reign with Christ.
When Jesus forgave even those who crucified Him, He revealed that no one desiring forgiveness is beyond pardon. No matter what our sin, His mercy is greater yet. At Calvary Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophetic word that He would intercede even for the ones executing Him. In so doing, Jesus expressed the humility and the nature of God.
Such is our call: we are to be conformed to His likeness. Here is Heaven’s expressed example of true greatness. Often, we survey our painful circumstances and think that something is definitely wrong. God’s purpose for us must be better than this.
Yet His ways are simply not like ours, and instead of trying to get Him to adjust to our ways, we are called to learn His. We too must drink of the cup that the Father has designed for us. If we learn His road and stay on it, we will arrive at His destination for us. But if we turn to the left or to the right, we will wind up somewhere else even though we started out with the proper goal.
In the first century, Israel failed to take the proper path and as a result, failed to apprehend God’s promise. However, a remnant discovered His road, His way, His Son. Today it is the same; God’s way is Christ. He is the only One who could authoritatively say, “I am the way” (John 14:6). Because they believed and followed Him, the faithfulness of that Jewish remnant has held immeasurable blessing for the nations over the last two thousand years. Because of them we have the New Testament apostolic writings and a clear testimony of God’s activities in the early Church.
In the next chapter we will consider that faithful remnant and also the coming future fulfillment of God’s eternal calling on the nation of Israel.
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